


Criss Cross

by PutItBriefly



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: And everyone talks at cross-purposes, And makes assumptions, F/M, In which Cat Noir is uncomfortable with the consent issues presented by Ladrien
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-26 20:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20395900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PutItBriefly/pseuds/PutItBriefly
Summary: When Alya's intrepid reporting skills uncover that the girl Adrien loves is Ladybug, Marinette is faced with a choice: Does she try to convince Adrien to forget about Ladybug or ask him out as a superhero?Cat Noir is opinionated, and it's impossible to write it off as jealousy.





	Criss Cross

Of course, Alya’s answer was _ “Investigative journalism!” _

It wasn’t as if Marinette hadn’t been _ curious _ before that magic phrase was invoked. It was simply...farfetched. Alya’s latest and greatest theory was farfetched, easy to dismiss as a misunderstanding, wishful thinking, or any of the millions of things that would be way more realistic. But journalism? Journalism meant she had _ sources. _

Enjoying her captivated audience, Alya leaned back on the fainting couch and held up one finger. “My first clue was the Ladyblog!” (Of course it was. When did Alya fail to work her blog into every conversation?) “Boy reads it and remembers it. Adrien might have a better memory for what I post than I do!” 

And just like that, Marinette was back to skepticism. “He’s your friend. He just wants to support you. It doesn’t have to mean anything else.”

Alya shot her the stink eye, and Marinette felt appropriately guilty. It wasn’t as if she didn’t _ like _ Alya’s blog or _ want _ to support her friend, the Ladyblog was just hard to be invested in when you _ were _ Ladybug. Marinette knew Alya did her best to cover every akuma attack, but it was impossible to get the details right when you weren’t on the front lines. Between attacks, Alya tended to write theories about Ladybug’s secret identity, and Marinette never enjoyed those. It was terrifying when Alya zeroed in on a clue that ought to lead to Marinette and a bit ridiculous when she produced “proof” that pointed in another direction. And sometimes, she had to reach so far for content that Alya was reduced to writing about _ actual bugs. _ Look, Ladybug hadn’t picked her theme, okay? Marinette didn’t actually care that ladybugs eat aphids or whatever. 

“But the real evidence is on his phone!”

“You spied on his _ phone?” _ Alya loved shenanigans and Marinette loved that about her, but what happened to the girl who prided herself on ethical reporting? Really, ‘whoops, I accidentally-on-purpose invaded your privacy by snooping through your phone’ was definitely more of a Marinette move than an Alya one.

“Naw, I didn’t,” Alya said with a wave of her hand. “Adrien let Nino mess around with it because he’s going to upgrade soon and might get the same one. Turns out Adrien is _ Ladybug obsessed. _ Pictures and Google alerts and bookmarks—all Ladybug!”

“So…” Marinette said slyly, “just like your phone?”

“True. But! Nino _ asked _ him!”

Marinette felt lightheaded. Or dizzy. Something. Alya had better get off her fainting couch because she was about to need it for its intended purpose. “Asked him? _ Asked _ him? Who...who just goes up to a person and is like _ yo, bro, do you have a crush on Ladybug?” _Her Nino impression was excellent, if she did say so herself.

(And, for later: Was Marinette the only person _ on the planet _ uncomfortable with voicing all the rampant thoughts running through her head or just the only person _ at her school? _) 

“Nino. Pay attention! It was supposed to be a joke because _ of course _ Adrien is a Ladybug fan—who isn’t?—and he reads my blog and everything, but Nino said Adrien freaked out and admitted it! Actually used the words _ in love! _ With Ladybug! Can you believe it?”

She couldn’t.

Marinette, and by extension Alya, knew exactly one thing about the girl Adrien loved: she didn’t like his jokes.

That just…

That just didn’t describe _ Ladybug. _True, he was a popular target for akuma victims and Ladybug had had to rescue him a fair few times, but when had he told a joke? Was it the thing about his hair? Was her perfect Adrien really so bad at humor that he’d been trying to tell her jokes all those times and she didn’t even realize? Or, worse still, had Adrien been telling Ladybug hilarious jokes every time they saw each other and she hadn’t been paying attention? Marinette thought Ladybug paid attention to Adrien, but maybe that was just her own self-consciousness about her crush blowing it out of proportion. What if Ladybug had not been paying enough attention to Adrien? What if Adrien thought Ladybug didn’t like him?

“This is perfect!”

Marinette gaped. “How?”

“Girl, it’s a _ celebrity crush! _ Ladybug is never going to go out with him! She’s never even going to talk to him unless it’s to rescue him! She’s _ unobtainable!” _

Well. Sure, yeah, but

Not_ really. _

“Ladybug has nothing on you!”

Suddenly lacking the nerve to actually look at Alya, Marinette awkwardly _ pfffted. _ “Me? Don’t be silly. Ladybug is waaaaaaaaay more amazing than me! If Adrien is in love with _ Ladybug, _ I’ll never have a chance!” She hoped Alya could not see that she was sweating.

“You are a real live girl!”

Marinette blinked. “Ladybug is real, Alya,” she said solemnly. “She’s been on the news.”

“You know what I mean! You’re available!”

She didn’t even know how to respond to such a lackluster sales pitch. _ Available. _ If existing was all it took to get Adrien, he’d be dating the entire school!

Alya pitched her nose. “If he’s in love with Ladybug, that means he’s not about to ask out any of the girls at school. But all of those girls have something Ladybug doesn’t—he can actually go out with them and have a real relationship. Marinette, you gotta be the one to take advantage of this! If you just spend time with him and show him how great you are, he’s bound to forget all about some silly celebrity crush and want you—someone he can be with every day!”

Alya had a plan (because of course she did.)

Step One: Take down all of the Adrien photos in Marinette’s room.  
(Marinette already did not like this plan.)

Step Two: Invite Adrien over to hang out. A lot. As a group with Alya and Nino, to keep the pressure off.  
(Okay, this part was good.)

Step Three: Gently encourage Adrien to stop pining for Ladybug and replace her in his heart with the super spectacularly awesome and talented Marinette Dupain-Cheng by casually mentioning how much Ladybug was not going to date random high school boys.  
(And this was where the plan was doomed to fail. Even if Adrien had a crush on Ladybug—which he didn’t, he had a crush on some normal girl who didn’t have a sense or humor and/or _did_ have a sense of humor and Adrien’s ideas about pranks were just weird—how was she supposed to _casually_ work Ladybug’s love life into a conversation?)

It would be a lot easier to just date him as Ladybug.

If he liked Ladybug, that is. Which he didn’t, so Marinette decided to go with the plan that involved Adrien coming to her house.

* * *

No one was surprised when Adrien’s life was all _ Adrien’s life _ about the whole thing.

It went like this:

After a few days of tearing down photos of Adrien and giving herself pep talks, Marinette leaned over her table towards the boy who sat in front of her in class, made a valiant attempt to stick to the script Alya had written, but instead said something about _ venomous snakes??? _ Alya intervened. “What Marinette is trying to say is Nino and I are going to her place for video games and snacks after school. Do you want to come?”

Adrien’s whole face lit up with pure joy. There was a halo behind him and angels singing. “I’d love to!” And then his smile vanished and the light was snuffed out and the angels silent. “But my father probably won’t allow it.”

Alya propped her chin in her hand. “Ask, and if he says no, you can just join us another time.” When Alya said things like that, it sounded like it barely mattered if he came or not. Not in a _ mean _ way. More like...Alya spoke with the complete assurance Adrien would be able to join them someday and she wasn’t at all concerned about when.

Alya’s easy confidence was really something. Sure, she wasn’t nervous talking to _ Marinette’s _ crush, but Marinette couldn’t remember a time when Alya wasn’t utterly confident with Nino, either. Marinette, on the other hand, had psyched herself up so much over inviting Adrien _ today _ that the possibly of his not coming felt like a disaster.

An entirely predictable disaster, mind you, but a disaster nonetheless.

After lunch, Adrien updated them. The short answer was no, he couldn’t come.

(Marinette vowed then and there to tack all of her Adrien photos back up on her walls where they belong.)

The long answer was, “I tried to ask my father as soon as I got home, but he was busy. So I asked Nathalie, and _ Nathalie _ said no. But I told her that it’s _ you, _ Marinette—you know, reminded her about the hat you made that my father liked so much and how I went to your place to practice for the Mecha Strike III tournament—and didn’t that change anything?” Adrien was inexplicably happy with the fact that apparently, Nathalie said she would _ try _ to find time in his schedule and nutrition plan for video games and snacks, provided he give appropriately advanced notice next time.

Alya, all bored confidence, asked, “What’s appropriately advanced notice?”

(Marinette was too busy internally dying over the way he had said _ it’s _ you, _ Marinette, _ as if her name alone justified anything and everything. It was a good death.)

Adrien shrugged. “Two weeks?”

“Adrien,” Alya said, suddenly animated and interested, “do you want to come with Nino and me for video games and snacks at Marinette’s place in precisely two weeks and four hours?”

He beamed. “Let me check my schedule.”

Precisely two weeks, four hours was a lot of time.

In that time, Marinette re-wallpapered her bedroom with Adrien photos (new ones, not the same ones she had torn down in preparation for his coming over) and tore them down all over again. Her walls felt lonely without him. Even though he knew she was a fan, she wanted him to have no doubts that she liked him as a person, not a celebrity.

Nathalie interviewed her parents twice. Each.

She then had Adrien write a list of every item commonly featured at the bakery that he might like to eat, submitted said list to Marinette’s parents so that they could give the calorie count (estimated is fine) and then issued Adrien a second list featuring what he was _ allowed _ to eat and in what quantities. The list specified that he was not to have chouquettes because he would never stick to a prescribed number, which Adrien was apparently quite annoyed about. (He was never anything but _ pure, unadulterated sunshine _ when he spoke to Marinette. She heard chouquettes were forbidden from Alya who heard it from Nino who claimed to have seen both lists firsthand.)

His bodyguard was to stay in the car, parked in front of Marinette’s house the entire time.

Her mother was to speak to him only in Chinese, thus counting a visit to Marinette’s house as “real world” conversation experience. His schedule could accommodate half an hour of video games and snacks at Marinette’s house only if they were able to slot it in where a Chinese lesson would usually go.

Marinette spent almost every cent she had on new games because she didn’t know what Adrien would want to play and she got into a spiral of over-thinking it that she was unable to pull herself out of. (Nino said Adrien liked everything. _ Everything! _ What did that mean?)

Probably, she reflected more than once, it would be easier to just ask him out as Ladybug.

* * *

Ladybug, though, she didn’t have a home to invite him to. 

If they went out as Adrien and Ladybug, they would have to go to some random rooftop somewhere. She’d miss him smile softly at the family photos in the living room. He wouldn’t be able to have a conversation in Chinese with _ Ladybug’s _ mom, or respectfully shake the hand of _ Ladybug’s _ dad.

If they went out as Adrien and Ladybug, she wouldn’t have Nino there to be a wingman and sneak forbidden chouquettes into her room anyway. Which would mean she would never get to see Adrien sit criss-cross applesauce on her fainting couch, throwing chouquettes into the air and try to catch them in his mouth. She wouldn’t have laughed with him when they bounced off the parasol instead. 

She wouldn’t have learned that having a lot of time at home by yourself meant a lot of time to play video games. Marinette loved fighting games. She’d dabbled in other franchises here and there, but her heart belonged to straight forward beatdowns. Adrien played anything he could get his hands on. He wasn’t allowed to play Pokemon Go or anything were you played collaboratively online with other players. (“My father thinks anonymous players would be bad influences.”) But fighting games, racing games, RPGs? The number of hours he spent in front of Breath of the Wild was reported to be embarrassing.

In fact, for their first ever Video Games and Snacks: Now Featuring Adrien get together, he barely touched a controller. He seemed a lot more interested in basking in the warmth of the bakery and exploring Marinette’s bedroom. 

This was a good plan.

This was a really good plan.

Why had she not liked this plan?

“Is that a Ladybug doll?”

“Sure is! I made it myself!”

Since Adrien was a Ladybug fan specifically, the other dolls had left in a drawer. Marinette really only took them out when she was baby-sitting, but Alya had thought it could be a conversation piece. A way to broach the topic of Ladybug and convince Adrien that he couldn’t be in love with a superhero when there was a real live girl right here.

Oh, right.

That was why she didn’t like this plan.

Adrien’s hand reached for the doll. “May I?”

“Of course!”

Her smile stretched so wide it _ hurt. _

“It’s really cool that you made this, Marinette.”

“Well.” How on earth could she spin this? “I like to sew, you know, and I baby-sit sometimes, so sewing dolls just seemed like a natural thing to do. There’s not much to the pattern.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, Marinette.” He fingered the doll’s felt pigtails. “You’re really creative.”

_ Alya! Help! _

Alya, locked in a fierce Mecha Strike battle with Nino, did not hear Marinette’s psychic plea.

“You can have it!”

Did she scream that?

Judging by the way everyone was staring at her, she screamed it. Great.

Adrien chuckled. “Oh, I couldn’t.”

_ "I! _ Don’t even want it anymore!”

He looked down at the doll. Ladybug was smiling up at Adrien with pink lips Marinette had drawn on with a marker. “I thought you made her for the kids you baby-sit.” 

“You take that one, and I can make a new one! A better one, that the kids will like more. It’ll be easy. I can do it in no time. Cat Noir won’t even get lonely!”

Adrien’s head snapped up. There was something intense in his eyes. “Cat Noir?”

Alya was paying attention now. Adrien’s back was to her and Nino, and she shot Marinette a thumbs up.

Of course! That’s how to spin it!

Ladybug doesn’t want random high school boys _ because she’s with Cat Noir! _

(Uuuuuuuuuugh.)

“Yeah! My Cat Noir doll!” Marinette fished through the drawer and produced Ladybug’s feline partner. “He’ll be heartbroken when you take Ladybug away, but it’s fine because I can just make a new one. I made them both because they are a… Set.” Try again! “Team.” Nope. _ “Duo.” _

Yeah, that was not going to happen.

Cat Noir smiled at her with his red marker mouth. “He’s a little harder to make because of the ears. So you can’t have _ him, _ not that you’d want him. I mean, Cat Noir’s _ fine. _ He’s _ okay. _ But I know you’re a _ Ladybug _ fan. So you can have that doll and don’t think you can’t because like I said, I don’t even want it. You’d be doing me a big favor by getting rid of it.”

Adrien looked..._ perplexed. _

But when his thirty minutes were up, he did take the doll home, so that was something. Possibly something in the wrong direction, but something. 

Later, Alya’s take on it was: “Okay. The pros: he came over. He had fun. You talked to him with real, human sentences. The cons: ...I think he thinks you forced him to take your garbage home? And you definitely didn’t convince him to forget about Ladybug. But, hey, baby steps. We’ll just try again next time!”

* * *

Marinette’s plans for Sunday evening were tea and sketching. The air was just cool enough to sip the Anhui Keemun her mama had imported from China and just warm enough that she didn’t need more than a light jacket as she sat up on the roof. Half-formed visions of draped fabric danced in her head. Was it an elegant evening gown? Or a pleated skirt? She wasn’t sure yet, but a few hours with her sketch pad was sure to offer some clarity.

She had drank one cup of tea and crumpled up three pages of her sketch pad when she took a brief break to admire the cityscape. It was nice to see the city so at peace...

Marinette squinted. In the distance, she could see a familiar black figure on a rooftop. And then he dropped down, out of sight.

“Tikki, I think our plans just changed.”

Marinette changed, too.

Ladybug immediately went to her yo-yo. No messages. When she encountered an akuma victim before Cat Noir, if he didn’t show up within a few minutes, she would call him every time there was a lull in the action, wondering out loud where he was and keeping him up to date on her plans and location.

If he was too busy to call, he was too busy to answer. She went to the tracker screen. The paw pad icon that represented her partner was moving slowly on the street, about three blocks away. She could be there in seconds! Two swings.

She landed on a rooftop just above him. From here, Cat Noir didn’t look too busy to call. 

He didn’t look like he was doing anything.

Ladybug frowned and vaulted down to the street, directly behind him. “Why didn’t you call?”

Cat Noir started, turned himself around with the momentum provided by an exaggerated swing of one leg and clasped his hands to his chest. “M’lady! Where you waiting by the phone? Had I but known!”

“No time for poetry, kitty. Where’s the akuma?”

His arms fell limply to his sides. “What akuma?”

Ladybug gestured towards him. “The one you transformed to fight.”

Cat Noir looked himself up and down as though trying to find what about himself was noteworthy. “I’m just going for a walk.”

“A walk? Why did you transform for a walk? People are going to think someone’s been akumatized!”

Shrugging, Cat Noir said, “I think my leisurely pace suggests otherwise.”

Ladybug folded her arms. So many times she had been tempted to use her powers for personal gain and almost every time, she’d been able to resist the temptation. And here Cat Noir was using his cat transformation to play puppy dog? “You can walk as normal you.”

“You’d think,” he muttered.

She had heard that tone before, always after he’d set himself up for a rejection and then had the nerve to feel like he was a victim. The hitch in her heart that hated hurting him was relieved that at the very least she wasn’t the only person in his life that made him feel that way while the voice in her head that never let her forget his value ranted because there were other things in his life that hurt him. Her reply came out sounding too irritated. “What does that mean?”

Defensive, Cat Noir said, “I just wanted to go for a walk. Why is that so terrible?” 

He thought she was mad at him. Of course he did. Why wouldn’t he think that with how she snapped at him? She was mad at herself for being so selfish to be pleased that she wasn’t the only thing to cause him pain and mad at the world for hurting him. And then she was mad at herself a second time over the conflict of interest. “It’s not terrible. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

Cat Noir shrugged, reached out and took her hand. With a gentle tug, he spurred her into falling into step beside him. Her tea was going to get cold, but sadly, to be forgotten seemed to be the fate of every pot of tea.

It was strange, though. Going for a walk didn’t usually rate very high on a list of common teenage pastimes. Getting out of the house on a boring day was one thing, but why not go to a friend’s house or a cafe as his regular self? Why aimlessly wander the streets of Paris as a superhero?

Cat Noir was very hard to take at face value. It was difficult to get to know someone when you weren’t allowed to know anything about them but a persona that was obviously fake. The transformation he underwent was just so _ extreme. _ The super agility, super strength and swordsmanship, sure. He needed that. The enhanced senses came in handy, too. But what about the rest? Had Plagg chosen to warp his owner’s eyes, make him purr and run around on all fours? Or did the boy beneath the mask want to be someone else, _ anything else, _ that badly? 

Ladybug had always assumed, in a vague sort of way, that he didn’t come from a happy family. He was tender with small children when they were akumatized and seemed quick to relate to their feelings. There had been a few disparaging comments about bad parenting. Someone who was used to good attention probably would have given up on pursuing Ladybug and turned their sights on a girl who liked him back, but Cat Noir just double downed on his efforts to please her.

“You’re grounded, aren’t you?”

“A-fur-mative”

And much as the Wannabe Casanova flirting and fetish fuel costume implied otherwise, Ladybug knew Cat Noir was a good kid. Master Fu would not have given the Miraculous to someone who wasn’t. He probably got straight A’s and always did his chores without complaining and babysat his little siblings after school. “You didn’t do anything wrong, did you?”

“Nnnope.” He grinned. “Well, I do have the bad habit of jumping out the window to fight evil when I’m supposed to be practicing piano, but my f—my family doesn’t know about that.”

She laughed. “I can’t picture you playing piano. Too much sitting still.”

“I can sit still. Someday, Plagg and I will play a duet for you.” He noticed she was uncomfortable before _ she _ did, squeezing the hand he still held and adding, “You will be blindfolded to protect my identity.”

“Is anyone at home missing you right now?”

There was a beat of silence before he answered. “They probably know I’m gone.”

Well.

That did not answer her question in all the worst ways. Ladybug asked another one: “So...do you wanna just...keep walking?”

“Yeah.”

They kept walking. When she pulled her hand out of his grasp, Cat Noir only laughed good-naturedly. (“Had you in my claws for a while there.”) The walk itself was surprisingly uneventful. To be honest, Ladybug had expected Hawk Moth to notice they were out and about and sic an akuma on someone, but it never happened. They walked aimlessly, stopping for anyone who asked for a photo and performing minor acts of random kindness when they spotted a pedestrian in need of an extra hand or two.

“You know what we should do?”

“Catch a movie?” 

“Since we aren’t going anywhere anyway, we ought to swing by the Agreste mansion.”

Cat Noir, who had already started flipping through cinema showtimes on his baton, froze. “Wha—? Are they in danger?”

“No. I mean, not as far as I know. I haven’t heard anything that makes me think they are.”

“Then let’s go to the movies.”

“You aren't going to retroactively turn this into a date, so stop trying. I just thought we could say hi to Adrien.”

Cat Noir looked absolutely flummoxed. _ “Why?” _

“Do I need a reason to say hi to people?”

“Of course not! It’s just weird that out of nowhere all of a sudden you want to go say hi to one specific person.”

“It’s not a thing. I just heard through the grapevine that he’s a fan and I thought he might like it if we dropped by.”

Cat Noir stared at her. It was, Ladybug had to admit, somewhat of a reversal of attitudes. Usually, he was the one who talked about how they were ‘stars’ and addressed his ‘fans.’ Did he really find it so shocking that she might come around to his way of thinking? But then he said, _ “Of course _ he’s a Ladybug fan. Everyone’s a Ladybug fan. You are _ amazing. _Do you want we should start knocking on every door in Paris?”

“You know what? Forget it. If you are gonna be this weird about it, never mind. I just thought it would be a nice thing to do.”

“He’s probably not even at home.”

She should not say that she had his schedule memorized and knew for a fact that he was. “He could be.”

“Then I bet he’s washing his hair. Models! So vain. I assume. I don’t know.”

Ladybug sniffed, offended. “I will have you know he is very down to earth.”

“Did you get that from a magazine?”

“No! And even if I did, what difference does it make?”

She was surprised that Cat Noir took the time to think about his response instead of firing back some heated, jealous comment. “He isn’t real.”

Of all the things Cat Noir could have said that easily was the most nonsensical. Maybe it was a good thing he usually didn’t stop and think before talking. “What?”

“It’s all for the brand, right? The photos and the fragrance and the Instagram, it’s all to make him look like the Ideal Clean Cut Not Intimidating Young Man so that they can sell more clothes. He can’t—probably can’t, I mean—say or do anything without worrying about how it’s going to affect the Agreste brand. He’s probably not the person you think he is. Deep down, I mean, when he can say what he wants to say.”

Cat Noir had Adrien pegged all wrong, but Ladybug was still surprised at how much thought he had put into Adrien’s feelings. “Are _ you _ a fan of Adrien?”

His eyes darted away. “Well. He did do the voice for Movie-Me, so it’s not like I can pretend I never heard of him.” 

_ Ugh. _ That movie. “Cat Noir was the only half-way decent thing about that whole movie and that’s only because Adrien did such a great job making those awful lines sound genuine.” 

“Is now a bad time to say there is definitely going to be a sequel and it’s _ definitely _ going to be worse?”

_ “Every _ time is a bad time. Where did you hear that?”

“Doesn’t matter. But Queen Bee is going to be in it.”

“They're gonna say I'm afraid of bees this time, aren't they?”

He laughed uncomfortably. “‘Hero overcomes fear to save the day’ isn’t a bad story. It’s just not _ your _ story.”

There was an unspoken invitation in there to ask what he thought her story was. Ladybug didn’t ask, too assured it ended with ‘and then she falls in love with her dashing partner, Cat Noir.’ “Anyway,” she said, eager to change the subject, “you don’t need to be jealous about Adrien because it’s not like I’m going to ask him out.”

Cat Noir nearly staggered with relief. “That’s good, because if the boy you’ve been rejecting me for was a celebrity crush on _ Adrien Agreste _ I’d have to throw myself off a building.” 

“No, don’t say that! Now I’m tempted to do it, kitty!” 

The fact was, she had always been tempted. From the minute Alya said Adrien was in love with Ladybug, she was tempted. But it was crazy. She couldn’t.

Could she?

“It’s not like he’d say yes,” she added.

“Of course he’d say yes! You’re _ Ladybug!” _

Her whole body tingled pleasantly at the thought. “You really think so?”

Inhuman eyes wide and lips clamped tightly shut, Cat Noir nodded vigorously.

Ladybug bit her lip. “But you probably think everyone wants me.”

“Just everyone with sense.”

“I’m not going to do it.” A firm decision. The real her was Marinette. If Adrien was going to love her, he needed to love Marinette.

“Good.”

Ladybug frowned. She really didn’t like how opinionated Cat Noir was about this. A resolution not to ask out Adrien as Ladybug didn’t mean she was going to turn around and ask _ him _ out instead. “I still like someone else, you know,” she said cautiously. “So you shouldn’t feel like this is for you.”

“I don’t.” He sounded so _ sad. _“But because I’m your friend and I care about you, I just feel like it would be wrong.”

Well, that was weird. “Why would it be wrong?”

Cat Noir chewed the inside of his cheek for a minute. “Would you reveal your secret identity to him?”

“Of course not! How can you even ask?” He knew how seriously she took the protection of her identity!

“Because that’s why it’s wrong. Lies by omission are still lies. If you were gonna reveal your secret identity, then I’d say go for it. But if you don’t tell him the truth, _ won’t _ tell him the truth, who knows what kind of major secrets he’d feel like he _has_ to keep from you.”

Ladybug smirked. “And what kind of dark secrets do you think—what did you call him? Ideal Clean Cut Good Boy? Has?”

“That’s just the thing: you don’t _ get _ to know,” Cat Noir answered. “And if you start a relationship with lies, you might end up doing something you’ll regret.” 

She could never regret anything about Adrien. Never. It was inconceivable. Cat Noir just didn’t know him, didn’t know what a thoroughly good and sensitive and sweet boy Adrien was, fame or no. But he was right about starting a relationship with lies. She wouldn’t want Adrien to feel betrayed if he found out Ladybug, His Girlfriend was really Marinette, His Friend and she never told him.

But if she dated him as Marinette, wouldn’t he _ also _ feel betrayed if he someday found out she was Ladybug and never told him?

“Do...do you think it’s wrong for us to date normal people as our normal selves?”

Cat Noir sighed heavily. “I think it’s less-bad. I know I don’t want to go through life alone just because I’m a superhero. I don’t usually go out with other girls because well..._you, _but if I wasn’t in love with you, I think I’d be okay with it. Probably feel guilty, but not enough to stop, not if I _really_ liked someone.” 

“Says the boy who went out with Marinette Dupain-Cheng as Cat Noir.”

“That was…” Cat Noir tried ineffectually to speak a few times and looked more like a fish than anything else, _ “entirely _a misunderstanding.”

“I recall you bringing her a pink rose.”

_ “That’s different because I didn’t know you knew about that!” _

She laughed. “Really, why did you even do it?”

Cat Noir scowled at her. “Because I thought it would hurt her feelings less if I broke up with her with a flower.”

“That makes no sense!”

“I know! Marinette is really awesome and! I! Panicked!”

It was one thing for Cat Noir to say kind things to her when they were discussing how _ not _ in love they were, but to hear him talk about how cool Marinette was to Ladybug was different. If he was saying it to Ladybug, he absolutely sincerely thought Marinette was awesome.

“Is it too identity-give-away-y to ask if you know her?”

Terrible, terrible, terrible question to ask because Cat Noir definitely didn’t care as much about concealing their identities as she did. She had asked with the expectation that the answer Cat Noir gave would be the one she would give had their roles been reversed: _ Yes, it is. You know I can’t answer that. _ But he didn’t think the way she did.

Cat Noir took two big fistfuls of his own hair, pulled on it and said, “I go to her school and she’s _ the best _ and she _ doesn’t like me!” _

Ladybug’s heart _ stopped. _

Cat Noir went to her school.

Cat Noir went to Adrien’s school.

Cat Noir knew Marinette lost all ability to function like a human being when she was within two feet of Adrien.

Cat Noir knew _ Ladybug _ lost all ability to function like a human being in the presence of Adrien and _ he didn’t know he knew. _

But Ladybug said, “What is with you and girls who don’t like you?”

Not even removing his hands from his hair, which now even more unkempt than it was before, he stared at her with the utmost betrayal and said, “So. I. Have. A. Type.”

Boy didn’t know the half of it.

“I always thought she seemed really friendly. Are you sure she doesn’t like you?” 

“Yeah. My best friend knows all about it and made sure I knew.”

Ouch.

“I try,” Cat Noir added, “to fix things between us but it always just gets sort of weird.”

“Well, there’s the problem,” Ladybug observed. “You come on too strong.” She couldn’t think of a boy at school that she didn’t like, never mind one who was trying to change her mind. Honestly, she probably liked the poor guy just fine but was too busy daydreaming about Adrien to notice he was looking to her of all people for validation. Part of her wanted to vow to do better, but she knew she couldn’t. If she started _ looking _for a good, kind, silly boy who just wanted Marinette to appreciate him, sooner or later, she would find Cat Noir. 

That was too dangerous.

“Maybe.” Then he ruffled his hair back into its usual degree of Never Been Sullied by a Comb, Ever. “It doesn’t matter. I mean...it _ matters, _ she’s great and I want her to like me, but I don’t want her to like-like me, you know? I just want to be _ friends.” _ He said that, sure, but he was blushing. “I mean, we _ are _ friends, I think, but I want to be better friends. Better fully platonic, non-romantic friends who aren’t weird around each other.”

“Yeah. Say no more.”

“My heart belongs to you, m’lady.”

“I don’t know.” Ladybug raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like there’s some stiff competition.”

He shook his head madly. “No! No, no, no. None whatsoever. It isn’t like that!”

Teasing him was too fun. “Because it sure _ sounds _ like you like Marinette.”

He held one hand in a pinching pose, forefinger and thumb just a centimeter apart. “Tiny, tiny crush. Almost nothing. Every guy in school likes Marinette at least a little, it’s not a real thing, I swear.” 

Ladybug took his hand and pressed it back down to his side. He seemed really worried that she might think he was fickle. Sad thing was, telling her he liked Marinette as well as Ladybug was the worst thing he could have said. It would be impossible for him to give her more proof of his sincerity than to tell her he loved both of her. Which just made her all the more guilty because she barely cared. She’d have to be more careful in the future, of course. He may not realize it, but she knew he loved her in all her forms. She had to protect his heart as best she could.

“It’s okay, kitty. I trust you.”

But, really.

He had just said _ every guy _in their school liked Marinette.

_ Adrien _ went to their school.

According to Cat Noir, _ Adrien _ liked Marinette.

Maybe getting Adrien to forget Ladybug wasn’t going to be impossible after all. 

* * *

The next Video Games and Snacks: Now Featuring Adrien get together was precisely three weeks after the first. (It turned out two weeks was not always enough notice.) 

And that was almost two entire weeks since Cat Noir had assured her that Adrien _ liked _ her.

The fear of rejection, which had once been so immobilizing, powerful and terrible, began to recede. Sure, there was still work to be done. He still liked someone else _ more, _ if that person was Ladybug or someone else. But he liked Marinette, too.

She could do this.

“Adrien! I’m really glad you could come this week.”

He smiled at her.

He smiled at her, and she felt like she was his entire world.

“Me, too, Marinette.”


End file.
